GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Leftism can make you suicidal

by

According to The Hill, Suicide hotlines receive record number of calls after Trump win.

Phones have been ringing off the hook at suicide hotlines since Donald Trump was named president-elect Tuesday.

According to multiple reports, many of those calling or texting into hotlines are members of the LGBTQ community, minorities and victims of sexual assault who are worried about Trump’s victory…

The article, to its credit, at least attempts to mention real-world facts that could be relevant:

On the campaign trail, Trump told Fox News that he hoped to put Supreme Court judges on the bench who could “change things” in regards to current rulings on same-sex marriage, adding that he wished the ruling “was done by state.”

Trump’s multiple accusations of sexual assault have also been triggers for women, as well as the lewd 2005 tape recording of Trump in which he makes light of sexual assault saying, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

But notice the bad job it does: the hysterical framing. For example, the repeated and vague use of the term “sexual assault” to imply great danger to women.

Fact: Trump does not condone rape and, unlike Bill Clinton, Trump has never been credibly accused of rape. From what I remember of Trump’s comments, at worst, he condoned locker-room talk and leaning in for a kiss or proposition after the other party had signaled her interest. And yes, that could be bad – because mistakes could be made; advances could be unwanted; cheating or diseases or painful regrets could happen if things did consensually go farther. Even so, sane people must admit that Trump does not rise to the level of “Bill Clinton bad”.

So, why this hysteria of feeling unsafe or “triggered” with Trump elected and not, say, with Bill Clinton around? Or with a prospect of Hillary Clinton being elected – given that she allegedly devastated the lives of women in helping to cover up her husband’s alleged raping? By any objective standard, the Clintons endanger women more than Trump does.

As to the gay-marriage aspect: The Supreme Court decision to make it nationwide was only last year. For thousands of years, gay men, women and teenagers have survived without that particular U.S. court decision. Believing that gay marriage should be decided by the States is hardly a dangerous position. Again, why the hysteria – among some people?

I believe the answer is this. Leftism harms you. As a philosophy, leftism discourages personal responsibility – and is objectively unrealistic. Therefore, it makes you less able to think clearly about your life; more mentally and emotionally vulnerable. Plus, in the specific case of 2016 and the Hillary Clinton campaign, leftism exposes you to manipulation via many untruths and exaggerations.

To anyone who may be genuinely suicidal over Trump’s election victory: You have my pity. Yes, that’s the correct word.

pit·y
noun
1. the feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others.

Because your suffering, at least in regard to Trump, is unnecessary.

To be clear: I did not support Trump for President. And I have my doubts about what will happen now, with him. But I’m not suicidal about him. Neither was I suicidal about Obama. Why not? Because, at a fairly young age, I made a conscious choice to value my own life, to make it better no matter what, and to develop common sense and my ability to think about reality clearly.

To all sufferers of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome): There is still time for you to make good choices to improve your mental health and your life. I hope and pray that you will.

The Book of Matt – and how myth is made (and unmade)

by

When President Obama signed a federal “hate crimes” law in 2009, many people at the time were calling it The Matthew Shepard Act. There was just one problem: The murder of Matthew Shepard, while horrible and grotesque, wasn’t a hate crime (i.e., crime of bias). It had nothing to do with anti-gay bias until after the fact, when it suited many persons’ interests to make it seem like it did.

Matthew Shepard was a methamphetamine addict – and possibly a small-time meth dealer/courier – who was well-acquainted with his chief killer, Aaron McKinney. “Well-acquainted” meaning that McKinney and Shepard had done meth together more than once, had conducted business as small-time meth dealers/couriers, and yes, had occasionally even had sex with each other.

It’s probable that Shepard didn’t know the other convicted killer: McKinney’s then-recent acquaintance, Russell Henderson. But there’s evidence that Henderson wasn’t homophobic and, on the night of the killing, may have even taken a knock from McKinney as Henderson spoke up for Shepard (against McKinney’s raging, meth-fueled violence). Which, if true, would make Henderson’s *murder* conviction unjust. (He would still deserve a lesser conviction as an accessory.)

Shepard’s killing was most likely a criminal-style ‘debt collection’ by McKinney that went wrong because McKinney was a troubled and cruel person coming off of a multi-day meth binge. So, who fabricated the myth of a hate crime perpetrated on Shepard by two homophobic total strangers, and why? It was a combination of personal and political interests.

  • McKinney’s higher-up meth connections wanted to remain hidden, and they would be able to kill McKinney (even in prison) if he squealed on them. Which meant: McKinney would desperately need to avoid naming them. Which meant: McKinney needed to hide his own meth dealings, and therefore, the true nature of his relationship with Shepard.
  • As a short, little guy (135 lb) headed for prison in the late 1990s, McKinney also needed to hide his own bisexuality. Which, again, meant: hiding the nature of his relationship with Shepard.
  • McKinney, his girlfriend and his lawyers all thought (at the time) that a “gay panic” defense, however unfaithful to reality, would be McKinney’s best shot at acquittal (or reduced charges).
  • Certain friends of Shepard may have also wanted to distract people from their, and Shepard’s, meth use and dealings.
  • Gay activist groups – ranging from GLAAD and HRC to what is now the Matthew Shepard Foundation – obviously gained benefits, both political and financial, from the myth.
  • The media gained a big “story”.
  • Once the public/media frenzy started over the (perceived) Shepard hate crime, Bill Clinton got involved in it – at least partly to try to blunt the impact of his Monica Lewinsky scandal. Shepard was attacked on 10/6/1998 and died on 10/12/1998 – roughly around the time Kenneth Starr released his reports and the House of Representatives opened its impeachment inquiry on Clinton.

All this, and more, is cited or documented in The Book of Matt, by Stephen Jiminez. It was published in 2013 and V the K posted on it. I had the book and recently, after talking with liberal friends who were still unaware of the revelations about Shepard, I finally read it.

Despite the horror of its subject, the book is a powerful work of investigative journalism. No such book can get everything right. But this one is readable, gripping, and honest about Jiminez’ own fears and doubts as he slowly comes to understand the falseness of the Shepard “hate crime” myth. The book weaves together a wealth of recollections and coherent detail from dozens of sources who knew Shepard or his dealings, including two of Shepard’s more important boyfriends. The book evaluates the credibility of its sources and, where that may be lacking, provides multiple sources for key claims. [Read more…]

And what to make of Ass Hunters?

by

I’ve never played it or heard of it, until I just caught this on Breitbart (via Bruce’s Twitter stream).

I’m Gay and ‘Ass Hunters’ is One of the Funniest Games I’ve Ever Played
by Milo Yiannopoulos

The outrage bell is tolling this week over Ass Hunters, a game in which you play a safari hunter who shoots homosexuals with a shotgun, trying to avoid getting molested by them…The game is as hilariously silly as it sounds.

…the moral police on both sides of the political fence are up in arms…[including] the left, of course, which is screaming blue bloody murder about the supposed homophobic incitements to violence and hatred…

That’s why Google was yesterday forced to remove a mobile version of the game, which has been floating around on the web for years, from its Play Store. All of which leaves me a bit mystified as to what possible harm this ridiculously daft, cartoonish nonsense could possibly to do society.

…both camps have completely missed the joke…It’s actually a very funny satire…

Read the whole thing.

Who disapproves of homosexuality?

by

Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has come out as the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

“Let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” he wrote in a column in Bloomberg Businessweek.

Congratulations, Tim! And it’s great to see you acknowledge, along the way, how America has changed and become gay-positive over the last several decades:

The world has changed so much since I was a kid. America is moving toward marriage equality, and the public figures who have bravely come out have helped change perceptions and made our culture more tolerant…

Part of social progress is understanding that a person is not defined only by one’s sexuality, race, or gender.

Although it’s not so great, Tim, that you still couldn’t stop yourself from playing the Gay Victim card like a drama queen:

Being gay has given me…a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with…

…there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay…

I challenge GP’s readers to post in the comments, any examples of U.S. / State “laws on the books” that positively or specifically authorize “employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation.”

As for the bit about landlords and tenants: It’s also known as freedom of association, Tim. It’s a good thing because *you* get to have it as well; or at least you *should* get to have it (I am aware that the State of California unfortunately denies everyone that freedom).

All of this got me wondering: How do Americans compare to the rest of the world, in attitudes toward gays/homosexuality? Pew Research has the answer (hat tip, Zero Hedge):

Note how, in the above list of 40 countries for 2013, all of the Islamic or Muslim-majority countries were at 78% disapproval or higher (Egypt at 95%). Compared to 37% or much less, for the U.S. and Western Europe (Spain at 6%). Fascinating.

Colleges where leftie students need to Play Victim

by

As if Oberlin‘s 2013 race hoax wasn’t enough, now we have the Vassar bias hoax:

Reports of bias incidents at Vassar College that involved hateful messages left on students’ doors were actually elaborate hoaxes — and the perpetrator is none other than the student member of the Bias Incident Response Team…

This fall semester at the liberal arts college in New York saw a curiously high number of bias incident reports…The task force had one student member…who is transgendered and was also a vice president of the Vassar Student Association (VSA)…

The DC has learned that one of the perpetrators was none other than [that student].

Via Ace, who goes along with Damn Dirty Rino in suggesting that Münchausen syndrome may be at play.

I’ve made my own assumption that the student must be politically “progressive”; if it’s incorrect, let us know in the comments.

More on hoaxers, the Knockout Game, and self-inflicted HIV

by

John Hayward at Human Events reviews all three. Here’s the state of play:

  • Persecution of lesbian NJ server still a hoax
  • Knockout Game still all too real
  • and the World Health Organization (WHO) still muddying the waters about people who self-inflict HIV, as there have indeed been some cases (just nothing like half of all new HIV cases in Greece, as the WHO had originally told people).

As to the Knockout Game, Hayward links Thomas Sowell, who says:

The New York authorities describe a recent series of such attacks and, because Jews have been singled out in these attacks, are considering prosecuting these assaults as “hate crimes.” …this “knockout game” has been played for years by young black gangs in other cities and other states, against people besides Jews — the victims being either whites in general or people of Asian ancestry. Attacks of this sort have been rampant in St. Louis. But they have also occurred in Massachusetts, Wisconsin and elsewhere. In Illinois the game has often been called “Polar Bear Hunting” by the young thugs, presumably because the targets are white…

“White Girl Bleed A Lot”…a book by Colin Flaherty…documents both the racial attacks across the nation and the media attempts to cover them up, as well as the local political and police officials who try to say that race had nothing to do with these attacks. Chapter 2 of the 2013 edition is titled, “The Knockout Game, St. Louis Style.” So this is nothing new, however new it may be to some in New York, thanks to the media’s political correctness.

Sounds like a ‘social phenomenon’, to me. At any rate, many of the attacks are on video (and/or documented in police reports) and, as such, are facts that can’t be wished away.

Gays not safe…in Dearborn, MI

by

From New American Media (via Creeping Sharia in Bruce’s Twitter stream):

Arab Americans comprise more than 40 percent of Dearborn’s population, which according to a 2010 U.S. Census report was 98,153.

Two Arabs from Dearborn said in parts of Beirut, Lebanon it can be less difficult for an Arab to be openly gay than it’s here. Lebanon is one of the few Arab countries on the forefront of organizing for LBGT rights…

Ryan [“a 23-year-old gay Arab from Dearborn”] says people who support gay Arabs often fear speaking in support of them publicly because conservative Arabs and Muslims will commit hate crimes, or incite riots against them…

Ramozotti [“the executive director of Al-Gamea”] has been threatened because of his sexual orientation…

The article is mainly about gay Arabs in Dearborn – but Arab or white, I don’t care (plus, I doubt that white gays have extra safety there). By the way, guess what Middle Eastern country is even more gay-progressive than Lebanon? Israel.

UMM, RELATED? Newtown, CT (Sandy Hook) residents have been applying for gun permits in record numbers. How could that be related? Simply this: An armed populace is a polite populace. To let law-abiding people have guns (which wrong-doers are going to have anyway) is to let law-abiding people defend themselves from violence. Newtown or Dearborn doesn’t matter. Neither does straight or gay or lesbian.

Boehner rejects ENDA

by

From Reuters:

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Monday opposed a bill to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, dimming the chances of the White House-backed measure becoming law.

“The speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs,” Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement.

Your thoughts on this topic are welcome in the comments. Here are mine. I agree that ENDA should be rejected, for the following reasons.

CA has had an anti-gay discrimination law for decades, which I supported, only then to see it mis-used. Without getting into details, I saw one friend use it to shake down employer after employer every couple of years, as each new one found out that he wasn’t a very good employee (regardless of his being gay). I also saw a good person suffer an anti-gay discrimination lawsuit whose allegations were wholly, boldly invented. (The suit failed in the end, but the lengthy process itself was a form of harm.)

Perhaps there are real cases of discrimination against good employees that these laws help to redress; but I’ve seen more that these laws empower lawyers – and grifters, liars and con artists. The broader point would be that these laws violate rights to property and to free association.

Just as an employee should be free to quit and move on to any employer who may want them, an employer should be free to fire any employee who works for them. The employer-employee relationship should be a private relationship between consenting adults; a relationship that either side can end at will. Laws which burden/restrict that are laws which violate people’s rights, opening the door to injustices of the kind I’ve outlined (and more).

Now, the reasons for opposing anti-discrimination laws (which might better be called “lawyer empowerment laws”) that I’ve just laid out, are not gay-specific. They work against these laws in general. Catching onto that, some people will respond: OK, but we do have these laws covering race, gender, religion, national origin, age, etc…why not add sexual orientation? As a longtime believer in equality-before-the-law for gays and straights, I don’t think that’s a terrible response. I am sympathetic to it.

But I keep coming back to the fact that two wrongs don’t make a right. That we have these laws to begin with, is a wrong; and we won’t escape the wrongness by broadening these laws to cover more and more categories. We should be looking, if anything, to reduce the categories.

RELATED (from Dan):  I had been planning on post on ENDA largely along the lines of the arguments Walter Olson makes here.  Just read the whole thing.

(And from Jeff): The heart of Olson’s argument is his last paragraph:

…At what point do we say no to future demands that protected-group status be accorded to employees based on political and controversial systems of belief, physical appearance (the “looksism” issue), family responsibilities, résumé gaps because of unemployment or other reasons, or use of lawful products or engagement in lawful activities in off hours—to name just a few…? If we say yes to all, we introduce a new presumption—familiar from the prevailing labor law in parts of Europe—that no employer should be free to terminate or take other “adverse action” against an employee without being prepared to show good cause to a judge. That is exactly the goal of some thinkers on the Left, but it should appall believers in a free economy.

Great point. ENDA is, in the end, just the next small step in the Left’s incremental strategy to make a society where no economic actions are private or unfettered; the politicians, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats rule all.

Matthew Shepard Martyrdom Story Gets Snoped

by

Matthew Shepard was a gay 21 year old college student, who was beaten to death in a terrible hate crime because… homophobia.

Status: False.

Stephen Jiminez – not a right-wing Christian apologist, but a gay investigative journalist who values the truth above ‘The Narrative’ – has published a book: The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard.

Shepard’s tragic and untimely demise may not have been fueled by his sexual orientation, but by drugs. For Shepard had likely agreed to trade methamphetamines for sex. And it killed him.

And for daring to undercut the narrative with inconvenient little things called “facts,” Jiminez has been vilified by those who profit from promoting a narrative of imaginary hate.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch blog recently accused Jimenez of serving as a lapdog of “right-wing pundits, radio hosts and bloggers.” In Washington, DC, gay activists pestered bookstores to cancel Jimenez’s appearances.

In a world with a properly functioning moral compass, Matt Shepard’s story would be a cautionary tale with the moral: “Don’t leave a bar with strangers to have sex and do drugs.”

But in the twisted world where only ‘The Narrative’ matters, Shepard was a complete innocent whose death is useful in villainizing people who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Freedom of Speech: It must be a two-way street…

by

…or else it’s just a pretense, a lie.

Reporter James Kirchik, known from TNR and The Advocate, was cut off last week on Russia’s RT network for denouncing Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay law. I’m with Kirchik in opposing the law, which puts speech restrictions on Russian gays.

Don’t get me wrong: As RT were ‘paying for his mic’, they had every right to cut off Kirchik. They have no obligation to provide him with a platform. Still, Kirchik deserves our cheers and thanks for publicly thumbing his nose at a State-funded propaganda network and for defending free speech.

Actions to support free speech, yay! But free speech isn’t free speech, unless disagreeable/bad views may also be expressed. The principle is that anyone advocating bad politics is to be answered by more speech; never to be silenced by law.

And that brings us to the case of the Rev. Scott Lively. In a blog thread last week, rusty brought up Lively, who is being sued in Massachusetts at the behest of a Uganda gay group, for his advocacy of the criminalizing of homosexuality in Uganda.

Criminalizing homosexuality is anti-gay (a term that the Gay Left otherwise uses too much) and a violation of individuals’ natural rights. As such, it’s wrong. But natural rights include free speech and conscience. For someone to merely advocate that homosexuality be criminalized is not a violation of human rights; it is an exercise of them.

See the problem? The pro-gay side is out there using the law to restrict opponents’ political speech, in the name of human rights (which ought to include free speech). So wrong!

Sure, Rev. Lively advocates something dumb and bad. But he has the moral right to do it, which means he ought to have the legal right.

That a U.S.-based court presumes to deal with a Ugandan matter seems odd; but that it does so in order to punish anyone’s political advocacy is a disgrace, a sign of how dangerously low our once-great country has fallen.

SMUG (the Ugandan gay group) is wrong to try to silence Lively with a court case. Given that they are, the MA court should have refused to play along, on the grounds that the MA and U.S. Constitutions guarantee Lively his right to free speech in all political issues, even gay issues, even when international law fails to guarantee it and even, or especially, if Lively’s views are objectionable.

It’s the objectionable views – the ones that the government’s Court itself dislikes – that courts are most obligated to protect. By now, we are used to the Gay Left forgetting such basic principles of freedom and justice, but – “et tu, Massachusetts?”

UPDATE: It just occurred to me that the MA court, and others who blame the Rev. Lively for what Ugandan legislators do, might be infected with a racist premise: the premise that the Ugandans are mere children (intellectually and morally), influenced too easily by the white man (Lively), who is thus accountable for their actions. If true, it would support my earlier post on the racism of the Left in 2013.

NB: I had originally said that Lively was being “prosecuted” in MA, when of course I should have said “sued”. Mistake fixed.